Nico Hulkenberg, a German driver, was seen in the Haas VF-24 car during Formula 1 Testing in Sakhir, Bahrain on February 21, 2024. The Haas Formula 1 team principal, Ayao Komatsu, is optimistic about the team’s performance after successful pre-season testing. He believes that the team has addressed the problematic issues that affected them throughout the 2023 season. Despite impressive qualifying performances, the VF-23 car struggled with tire degradation during races, resulting in a tenth-place finish in the Constructor’s Championship. Haas had hoped to resolve these issues with a major upgrade at the United States Grand Prix, but it did not yield the desired results, leading to a reevaluation for the upcoming season. Following the departure of Guenther Steiner, Ayao Komatsu, who previously served as the director of engineering, has taken on the role of team principal and aims to guide the team in the right direction. During pre-season testing, Haas focused on running the car over longer distances to understand the root causes of their tire degradation problems. Komatsu expects that the new VF-24 car will provide greater consistency for drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, although some concerns about performance still remain. He acknowledges that last year’s car had inconsistent behavior and was difficult to predict depending on various conditions such as tire condition, wind, and track temperature. However, he believes that this year’s car is more predictable and does not exhibit the same problematic characteristics. Although the team still lacks downforce, especially in high-speed situations and when balancing medium/low-speed characteristics, Komatsu considers the car to be an “acceptable” starting point before further upgrades are introduced throughout the season. He emphasizes that the team’s focus will be on race performance rather than qualifying positions. Komatsu explains that there is no point in qualifying well if the car cannot maintain its position during the race. The team’s objective is to qualify in a lower position but have a car that can race competitively and potentially finish in the top 10. He clarifies that the team will not suddenly prioritize optimizing the car for qualifying in the upcoming weekend but instead continue to address their known problem of race performance. Komatsu points to the example of the Abu Dhabi race in the previous season where they qualified in eighth place but were unable to make any progress during the race. He acknowledges that everyone in the team is aware of this frustration and, therefore, it is not difficult to convince them to prioritize race performance. However, he also acknowledges that there is curiosity within the team to assess the car’s one-lap pace. Nevertheless, Komatsu reiterates that the main objective of the test is to learn about tire management and long-run pace, and anything else is considered unnecessary distractions.
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